Flashback Friday #85

Taunts & Tunes

A cheery welcome to all who have happened to venture into my little patch of cyberspace. In today's glance over my shoulder into the past, we look at childhood taunts that are set to music. We also take a peek at the musical rhymes used in choosing "who's it".

First up is the musical taunts. I hadn't thought much of them until I heard a kid saying one in a movie recently. The memories flooded back. Do you remember this classic?

Liar, liar, pants on fire, hanging from a telephone wire.

How about this one?

Fatty, fatty, two-by-four,

couldn't get through the bathroom door,

so he did it on the floor,

licked it up and asked for more.

Surely you remember this:

Here comes (insert name), walking down the Delaware,

chewing on his underwear, couldn't afford another pair.

Ten days later, bitten by a polar bear

Wonder why the polar bear died?

I heard all of these more times than I wished.

Next up we have the infamous "fisties" games for deciding who was it. Everyone puts their fists in the circle and the rhymes go around until someone is chosen. Remember these classics?

Engine, engine number nine, rolling down Chicago line.

If the train should jump the tracks, do you want your money back?

YES- Y E S spells yes and you are not it (or NO- N O spells no and you are not it).

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Bubble gum, bubble gum, in a dish,

how many pieces do you wish?

(number given, fists counted) and you are not it.

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Dip, dip, dip, my little ship,

sailed across the ocean you are it.

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One potato, two potato, three potato, four.
Five potato, six potato, seven potato, more.
(except where I was from it was One tata, two tata, three tata, four...)


This next ditty doesn't fall into either of the above categories, but it was a song we enjoyed singing as children. I figured I'd throw it in too.

McDonald's is your kind of place.
They serve you rattlesnakes.
They throw them in your face.
They steal your license plates.
Last time that I was there,
They fried my underwear.
McDonald's is your kind of place.
You deserve a break today,
So get up and run away,
From McDonald's.
They do it all for
Big company profits.

Do you remember one that I haven't included?

Star Trek Meets Monty Python

Anyone who has ever seen "Monty Python & The Holy Grail" will appreciate this. It's the "Camelot Song" sung with images from Star Trek. Let the silliness begin.

And for those who have never seen the original, here it is to compare:



And if you really wish to be silly, here is the song done Lego style. (And they say that I have too much time on my hands).

Call out the TSA

I thought of Ninja John (who works for the TSA) when I saw this video. The puck "disappears" during the game.The goalie gets pulled aside for "extra screening". I'm just glad I wasn't the referee who had his arm down the back of the goalies pants. http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/Video-Puck-goes-missing-in-Niemi-s-pads-Toews-?urn=nhl,236462

Flashback Friday #84

Go Fly A Kite

Hello all. Welcome to another episode of Flashback Friday. Today we will fly back several years to a time in my life that would have made Charlie Brown exclaim "Good Grief".

We had a hay field behind our house. This is where we tossed our "solids" when we cleaned out our outhouse. There were no trees around so it made the perfect place to fly a kite.

I saved up my hard earned cash to purchase a kite. It was the coolest kite ever. It was white and had a scene from "Star Trek" on it. "The Enterprise" was in the forefront in blue with a Klingon battle cruiser in red in the background. Surely a kite like that would fly good.

I got that kite put together and headed out to the field. A good gust of wind came up and the kite went skyward. Woo hoo. I was ready to spend some quality time flying a kite.

Then tragedy struck. Suddenly the kite plummeted earthward like a rock. It crashed with a sickening thud. I ran over to it and checked it for damage. I was sickened to see that both sticks were broken. I then realized the error of my way. I had put no tail on my kite.

I carried the carnage inside. When Dad saw what had happened. He loaded me in the car and we headed into town to buy another one. They had one identical to the one that had bit the dust. "The Enterprise" would indeed orbit the hayfield.

After the kite was assembled with a tail, I headed back out to the field. Up went the kite. Higher & higher. It was so cool. Higher & higher. I had NEVER had a kite up that high before. It was so high, I was almost out of string.

Then a large gust of wind came up, and jerked the string out of my hand. The kite was loose, and running away from me. I took off like a streak. I had to catch that string. I got tantalizing close several times. It was like chasing a dog that didn't want to be caught.

I started to panic. The kite was headed to the creek. At the creek was a tree line. Kites & trees done get along well. The string stopped for a moment and I ran as fast as I could. I then promptly landed in a groundhog hole and spilled head over heels. When I got up, the string was gone, but the kite was still flying high.

I made it back to the tree line to try to find the string. Believe it or not, I found it. It was caught in a tree. A thorn tree. The thorns on this tree were huge. Pygmies could have used them for spears. There was no way that I could climb that tree to retrieve my kite.

The winds kept that kite aloft for two days.

Did you ever have any success flying a kite?

This makes me smile

Yesterday, I took "The Girl" outside to play. We were soon joined by her brother, "The Boy". She spotted a basket of toys that we bought at an auction about four years ago for her brother, who was then 4, to play with.There were roads, cars and trains in the basket. She was fascinated with it all. Big brother played with little sister for quite some time.

Racist movie?

While at Largest-Retailer-In-The-World-Mart the other day, I overheard this conversation among some older teen-age boys:

Boy 1: (running up to his friends holding a DVD) Look at this movie! With a title like that, and white starring actors, there's no way this movie isn't racist!

Boy 2: Dude, That movie's about a boat.

Boy 1: Are you sure?

At this point, I had to move away quickly. I got several aisles down and burst into laughter. The movie was The African Queen" starring Humphrey Bogart & Kathrine Hepburn.

Flashback Friday #83

The "Go-cart"

Greeting, one and all. Welcome back to the walk down memory lane that I refer to as Flashback Friday. Today's post is brought to you by the friendly folks at There, I Fixed It. When I saw this picture, it reminded me of a "go-cart" That Sir Gattabout & I made at our Grandma's in Westerville one summer:

This, however, looks like a Lexus compared to what we put together. When you take two bored young boys, add a garage full of "useful stuff" and a Catholic Church/school across the street that had some great hills in it's campus, you have all the ingredients for chaos.

We both had bikes, but riding bikes had lost the thrill. We asked Grandma if we could look through the garage to find the parts necessary to make a home made go-cart. She didn't care as long as we put the stuff back when we were finished with it. Grandpa was quite the mechanic, and also had a garbage route, so there was lots of stuff to chose from in the garage.

We used a hand dolly as the frame. When you lay it on the ground, you already have the two back wheels in place. The front wheels were made with a rotisserie rod, lawn mower wheels and cotter pins. An old motorcycle seat was laid on the dolly to sit upon. Finally, using hose clamps, a set of bicycle handle bars was attached to the handle of the dolly, also securing the front wheels. It was quite the sight. It reminds me a bit of this creation:

Now you'll notice that I mentioned that it had bicycle handle bars. These were to hang onto to brace yourself in the event that you ran into something. You couldn't steer, just coast down the hills, and hope nobody pulls out in front of you. There were also no brakes. Push off & pray until you coasted to a stop.

At the end of the day, we pushed the "go-cart" home. Grandma was having coffee with one of her friends that dropped by. "Stretch" had been a friend of the family for years,and had worked with Grandpa on the garbage route, so the door was always open for him to stop by.

He saw us pushing our creation back to the garage and asked what in the world it was. When we told him, he looked at it and shook his head. He got in his truck and told us that he would be right back.

About ten minutes went by, and "Stretch" pulled back in the driveway. He undid the tailgate of his truck and let down the body of an old riding mower. It had no engine, or mower deck, but it had all the wheels, and you could, at least, steer it. It looked similar to this:

We disassembled our creation, and put everything back as we promised. The next day, we spent the day coasting down the hills on our new ride. That old mower frame was still in the garage when the house sold after Grandma passed away.

Did you ever get into a creative fit as a child?

You can get paid for that?

At our factory, you get a bonus if you don't miss any days (other than vacation days) and make it to work on time every day during a calendar quarter. It is called the "Bonus Objective". I've gotten it every time except twice (once when my MIL fell and cut her head open and the other for being in KY for my eldest first birth).

When I got my bonus check this time, it just struck me funny. Since it is a "special" incentive, it is taxed at the highest rate allowed. As you read across the check stub, it gave the reason for the check, the classification of the check, then the amount. So reading the reason & classification straight across it read "Special Gross BO" then a dollar amount. Who knew that you could get paid for smelling bad?

Health care as good as Congress has

It was promised by the President that if the "Obamacare" health bill passed, everyone would have health care as good as Congress has. According to an article in The New York Times, it may be true because Congress is losing their access to the ultra-fine health care plan that they have because the bill passed. If the members of Congress knew this was in the bill, do you really think they would have voted for it? You can read about it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/us/politics/13health.html?scp=2&sq=robert%20pear&st=cse

A Little Mischief

Yesterday I was officiating a Junior Bible Quiz in Dublin, Ohio (I'm the head scorekeeper). My assistant scorekeeper has two sons. One is quizzing age (6-11) and the other is 12. Being 12 puts you at that weird adolescence age.

At each quiz, a small container of candies is put at each official's table (judges table & scorekeepers table) to munch during the quizzes. The scorekeepers had M&Ms and Hershey kisses. The 12 year old (I'll call him "Gary") munched on the M&M throughout the day. Since his dad wasn't eating them, he felt he could.

At the end of the day, there were 5 M&Ms and two Hershey kisses left. I told "Gary" to finish off the M&Ms. He looked at me and said "Really?". I nodded yes and he devoured them. I told him to take the other two candies and give one each to "Alice" and "Janet", the Quiz Master's daughters (who are 13 & 14, I think).

He did this without hesitation. I then called him back over and told him "What do you think your parents will say when I tell them that you gave "Alice" & "Janet" each a kiss?" His face immediately turned beet red. I told his dad about it and he thought it was pretty funny.

"Janet" didn't want the chocolate, so she placed it back on my table. I offered it to "Gary" as a peace offering, but he wanted nothing more to do with it. I then gave it to my wife. I said "See "Gary", I just gave my wife a kiss." He scrunched his face up and said "Yuuuck!"

Flashback Friday #82

Camping out in the backyard

A warm greeting to those who have entered into my little patch of blogsphere. The weather around here has been wonderful and it got me thinking about camping out in the backyard.

We camped out frequently when I was young. The problem was, we never owned a tent. How do you camp out without a tent, you ask? You use your neighbor's tent.

One year we set up The Butcher boys tent up in our backyard (ours was bigger) in late April/ Early May. We were never allowed to spend school nights out there but Fridays & Saturdays were OK. That tent stayed up until late October. It made a dandy place to hide if you wanted some solitude because it had been up so long, it just became part of the scenery.

Another time our one of neighbors a few doors up set up a tent in their backyard. I got to know them very well. That tent, however was knocked down by the brothers roughhousing in it, and their parents wouldn't let them set it back up.

The one time we were going to go back to the creek to camp out, Sir Gattabout & his friends snuck back and scared the bejebbers out of us. From then on, we felt it was safer to camp in the backyard since our parents could hear everything that was going on.

Were you a fan of backyard camping, or did you prefer to rough it out in the woods?

Happy Easter

I hope you enjoy this short flic as much as I did:

Flashback Friday #81

April Showers Bring Flooded Basements

Hello. Welcome back. In today's post we wade into an interesting subject. Flooded basements.

Our house was like many others in the area that were built around the turn of the century. The thing that they all had in common is that they had dirt basements. A big hole with a house sitting on it describes our basement.

We had an outside entrance at one time. It was the classic slanted basement door at the side of the house. One day, the dirt surrounding that entrance collapsed, so we had to shut it off, and create an indoor entrance to the basement. Dad cut an entry hole beneath the staircase and positioned a stepladder beneath the hole. Needless to say, it wasn't very easy to take anything to the basement. Actually the only thing down there was the fuse box and the hot water tank (that is after we got running water).

There was no furnace down in the basement. We heated the house with a wood burning stove. One day Dad decided that we needed to install a furnace. That's all well & good, but how do you get a furnace into a basement that doesn't have an outside entrance? Since it was a dirt basement, and had no solid foundation walls, Dad decided to dig a hole big enough to slide the furnace into the basement. Dig a hole in a hole. Interesting engineering indeed.

He and his best friend, Chuck, dug that hole and slid the furnace in place. In order to do that, they had to dig a small valley beneath the hole that gradually sloped up to where the furnace would set. Thy built up the center of the basement so the furnace sat higher than anything else in the basement. That way, if the basement ever flooded, the furnace wouldn't be affected.

It's a good thing that they did that because they didn't do a real good job in filling in the access hole. At first a hole about the size of your fist appeared in the basement wall. It grew with each rain. No matter how many times they filled it up, it reappeared. When it did, the valley they created filled into a pool. A perfect indoor play area for a young boy with an active imagination.

I had a good sized boat, and hundreds of army men and cowboys & indians. I was forever in the basement playing in the water. I also was forever getting yelled at for being in the basement, playing in the water. Dad decided something had to be done. He installed a sump pump.

This didn't deter me. Instead of going to the basement to play in the water, I would go to the end of the sump pump pipe. I would set up my soldiers while keeping a knee on the pipe. When I felt the vibrations from the pump kicking on, I would step back and watch the water wash the soldiers away. It was like they were getting caught in a flash flood. I did that for hours. I also put Hot Wheels in the pipe and watched them shoot out with the water. It didn't take much to keep me entertained.

Did you ever come up with a creative way to keep out of trouble?